Page 150 - Complete Works of Dr. KCV Volume 1

against losing oneself in God, that such a condition is of no use at all and must, indeed, be unreal. There are theories of Vedanta - I don't say it is Advaita - which hold that the individual Soul (that is you) is immortal and is Eternal. If you do not exist God does not exist - so you must exist. That is why they say the individual soul is eternal, indestructible and so on. That may be alright for people to say so. Actually what happens? It is an experience not only in spirituality but almost at every level that True Love involves a dissolution of oneself, a giving up of oneself even to the point of annihilation of identity. This we call merging. The religious people who are anxious to experience God do not like to be merged or lost in God. To them realisation means looking at God, enjoying God, worshipping Him in all sorts of ways, but not to feel one with God. That is, these people want God to live for them and not they for God. So, almost all religions want God for the sake of the individual. Nobody is thinking of living to exist for God. So many people want to have their identity kept up. And we find their identity is tried to be fostered by names, works and so on and those remnants as the delegates of such people. They are trying to give immortality to the works of those people. So to that extent we create a kind of immortality to their identity.
It is only a philosophical feeling that you must have been previously. There are arguments for that. But ultimately do you exist as a separate entity, keeping your own identity till the very end? Our Master says, the identity which each individual has, continues to be even till the last date of Maha Pralaya. Some people said even at Maha Pralaya, a person goes on existing. That is a philosophical necessity. Even when a man enters into the state of Tam, he continues to have a little of identity till the very last when everybody goes to the Centre which is the Tam, and everybody at that stage enters into it and after that period of Maha Pralaya they come back again. The question is whether they themselves come back again? Can we believe that Markandeya comes back after every Maha Pralaya? Most probably we must accept it. But then, it is not clear whether it is a problem for experience or for imagination.
The Upanishad is very clear in this matter. The very same problem is stated in Katopanishad. Nachiketa asks Yama 'What happens to me after I get realisation, whether I exist or not?' 'It is very difficult' Yama said, 'do not